But Maman Pauline scolds me. ‘Michel, you just eat those doughnuts, now, and drink your ginger root juice. If someone gives you a goat, you don’t complain that it’s got a hole in its tooth!’
Madame Mutombo and my mother go shopping together. They buy peanuts in bulk and sell them on at the Grand Marché. I see them at our house, or at the Mutombos’, counting the money they’ve earned and splitting the profits fifty/fifty. You won’t find a capitalist doing that.
~ ~ ~
I often think about the day Caroline and I decided we were married. It was a Sunday afternoon, my parents were out. Caroline arrived when I wasn’t expecting her, with a little blue plastic bag with lots of things in. ‘Michel, I’m sick of waiting till we’re grown up, let’s get married today.’
We went round the back of our house and built a little tent with mango tree branches and cloths my mother had washed and left out to dry in the sun. It was our house, just for the two of us.
Monsieur Mutombo always makes pretty dolls for his daughter, so she had two of them with her that day. She said the dolls were our children. And we put them on a plank, to play together. Caroline started to get the food ready, with pretend plates and spoons: empty margarine tubs and little sticks.
After a few minutes, she announced that the food was ready. ‘Come, husband, let’s sit down to eat.’
Then she said that first of all we had to feed our babies because they were very hungry and were crying all the time. But first they had to have a bath. I washed the boy. Caroline washed the girl because when a boy’s naked he looks like me, and when a girl’s naked she looks like Caroline, so it was right that she should wash the girl and I should wash the boy. After their bath we put their bibs on so the food wouldn’t get on their clothes and then we fed them.
A few minutes later Caroline turned to me and said, ‘There now, they’ve had a good meal, they even burped!’
We rocked them, put them into bed, then we pretended to eat too. We had a conversation, trying to do it like grown ups. I touched Caroline’s hair and she touched my chin. She was the one who talked most. I listened, and nodded. We laughed a lot, and if I didn’t laugh she got cross. So I laughed, anyway, even when I wasn’t meant to.
I noticed she was sad, all of a sudden.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked.
‘Michel, I’m worried.’
‘What about?’
‘Our children. We must put some money in the bank for when they’re older, or they’ll be unhappy.’
‘You’re right, we should.’
‘You know, if they’re unhappy, the state will take them away and put them in a place for orphans, and they’ll end up like the thugs at the Grand Marché.’
‘Well, they mustn’t do that. We don’t want them ending up thugs at the Grand Marché. They’ll get sent to prison and we’ll be unhappy all our lives.’
‘And we must buy a nice red, five-seater car, and get even richer than the President of the Republic.’
‘You can count on me. We’ll buy our red five-seater from my uncle’s company, he’ll give us a family discount. I’m his nephew!’
‘And how much d’you think a red car like that costs, with five seats?’
‘I’ll ask my uncle.’
She passed me a stick, and a little empty glass: ‘Here, smoke your pipe, and drink up your glass of corn spirit.’
I pretended to smoke the pipe and drink my glass of corn spirit.
She took my hand. ‘Michel, you know I love you, don’t you?’
I didn’t answer. It was the first time I’d heard someone tell me ‘I love you’. And her voice was different, and she was looking at me, waiting for me to say something to her. What could I say? In the end I said nothing, I felt so light I thought I might just float up into the sky. My ears were hot. And my heart was beating so loud I thought Caroline must be able to hear it.
She was disappointed and let go of my hand: ‘Honestly, you’re hopeless! When a woman says “I love you”, you have to say “I love you too”, that’s what grown-ups do.’
So, like a grown up, I said, ‘I love you too.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes, really.’
‘Swear!’
‘I swear!’
‘How do you love me, then?’
‘I have to tell you how I love you?’
‘Yes, Michel, if you don’t tell me how you love me, what am I supposed to think? I’m going to think you don’t love me at all, and I’m going to be sad the whole time. And I don’t want to be sad because my mother says it makes women look old, that’s why my mother looks old because my father’s never told her how he loves her. I really don’t want to grow old. If I grow old then one day you’re going to tell me I’m not beautiful, and you’ll go and find another wife…’
Suddenly a plane flew over head. So then I said: ‘I love you like the plane that just went overhead.’
‘No, no, you’re not meant to say that! I want you to love me more than the plane because the plane’s everybody’s; it’s for people going to France, who never come back.’
I thought we were just playing, but then she started really crying. I felt like crying too, then. But Lounès had already told me men mustn’t cry in front of women, or they’ll think you’re weak. So I cried inside.
‘You still don’t get it, Michel! I want you to love me like the red car with five seats, our very own car, and our children’s and our little white dog’s.’
‘Yes, I love you like a red five-seater car.’
At last, she was happy, she touched my chin again, and I touched her hair, and dried her tears. When she tried to kiss me on the lips, I shrank back as though I’d been bitten by a snake.
‘Are you afraid of me?’
‘No.’
‘You are!’
‘No…’
‘Well why do you back off when I tried to kiss you on the mouth like in white people’s films?’
‘Mouths, that’s for when we’re really married, with witnesses, chosen by our parents.’
‘Who’ll be your witness?’
‘Your brother.’
‘Mine’ll be Léontine, she’s my best friend.’
She was so pleased, she poured me another glass of corn spirit. I said nothing, so she added: ‘I understand why you’re not talking, you’re tired, like men are when they come home from work. I’ll just wash the plates, then we’ll go to sleep.’
She turned her back to me, and pretended to wash the plates, by rubbing the margarine pots. She told me to carry on drinking my glass of corn spirit and smoking my pipe.
She counted up to twenty. ‘There, that’s done, I’ve washed everything! I’m going to shut the door, and put out the light, come to bed with me, don’t be afraid.’
To switch out the light, she pressed an imaginary button.
‘There you are, the light’s off!’
She lay down in the middle of the tent on her back, and closed her eyes. I said to myself, ‘She’s going to go to sleep for real, I don’t want to go to sleep in broad daylight. Besides, if my parents find us sleeping, I don’t know what they’ll think. I’d better get going, yeah, I’d better get out of here.’
Just as I was about to get up and leave the tent, she caught my hand. ‘Come on, lie down on top of me, close your eyes. That’s what grown-ups do.’
~ ~ ~
Maman Pauline goes into the bedroom. I follow her. She comes back into the living room, I come back too. She’s in front of the mirror, I’m just behind her. She puts on lipstick and powder, I make the same gestures, though I don’t put anything on because that kind of thing’s only for women, and apparently if boys put on makeup it means they’re done for, there’s something not right in their brain.